Mending Bridges Broken
by luvscharlie
Summary: Cho Chang is determined to mend what went awry between she and Harry Potter. Harry-Cho


_Mending Bridges Broken_ by Luvscharlie

Cho knew where to find him. He was not all that difficult to figure out. Boy hero or not, he was still just a boy on the cusp of manhood, and she'd learned from experience they were all very much the same.

She could hear the roar of the crowd outside as she wandered the empty corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She had only heard second hand about the incident between Harry and Draco Malfoy that had landed Harry in infinite detention with Professor Snape, and the details were vague at best (at worst, hyped up to the degree that the rumours of lascivious goings on in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom between Harry and Draco only grew wilder and more detailed with every passing day). She turned a deaf ear whenever she could.

The only sound as she moved down the seventh floor corridor and farther away from the pitch where the Gryffindor Quidditch team was bravely facing down Hufflepuff without their star Seeker was the gentle swish of her skirt as she rounded a corner. She passed by the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach trolls to dance the ballet once, twice, then a third time and the door appeared. She wasn't sure whether she should knock, but thought better of it and turned the handle.

Harry startled at the sound of the creaking as the door swung forward to allow her entry. He stood alone in the centre of the room, worried lines etched far too deep on such a young face, Cho thought. This war was aging him; aging them all, and stealing their innocence.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his tone one of clear contempt. He still had not forgiven her for Marietta's indiscretion last year. Perhaps "indiscretion" was sugar coating it, but that was the way she preferred to think of it.

"I thought you could use some company."

"You thought wrong." Harry turned from her to stare at a spot somewhere over the suit of armor that had seemed to stand sentry over their secret meetings last year.

Cho opted for a smile, in an attempt to thaw the air. She walked briskly around to place herself directly in his line of vision. "Perhaps. Yet the room did let me in, so it must be in agreement with me. You shouldn't be alone."

Harry opened his mouth to offer protest, seemed to think better of it, then closed his mouth without sound, doing a fairly impressive mimic of a fish. Cho attempted not to smile. Smiling would not earn her any bonus points with Harry. She hated this really. It was a paying of dues, in a way, but in truthfulness, she hated that the tables had turned. After all, last year it was Harry vying for her attention. This year, he could barely look at her without disgust so evident in his face.

"You know, Harry, you might throw me a wand here. I'd like to mend what was broken between us last year."

"Broken trust doesn't mend so easily, Cho."

"Look, I don't now, nor did I then, agree with what Marietta did, but how long do you plan to hold that against her? Against me? Last year things were—well they were hard for all of us, not just for you, Harry."

Harry let out a sigh and the emptiness of the room made it reverberate off the walls. He walked over to the velvet draped sofa that appeared out of nowhere just in time to catch him as he sat. _There are times this room is just creepy in its ability to read our needs._

"Harry," Cho more sighed than said as she moved to sit beside him, "can't we move past this? I don't agree with what Marietta did, but she was scared just like—"

"Just like the rest of us. We were all afraid last year. None of us wanted to cross Umbridge, but some of us felt there was no choice, and none of the others gave us up no matter how scared they got, or who it put at risk for them to remain a part of Dumbledore's Army."

Cho sighed and turned for the door. She opened it and started to walk through, looking back once, then growing angry and slamming it closed again. This was important after all. Far too important to give up so easily. She'd worked all of summer holiday planning out in her head how this would go, how she would mend this bridge between them and make things right again, and she wasn't about to let his streak of stubborn male pride go and ruin it all.

It was time to be firm.

"All right, Harry. I've had enough. This whatever-it-is between us ends. Now."

Harry looked up from his place on the sofa clearly startled at her new found voice of confidence. She noted his attention and silently reminded herself not to let her voice crack in fear. _Confidence. Confidence was of the utmost importance._

"I want to put this behind us. I want to move forward. I want to go back to that place where we were only starting to discover this thing that was happening between us." Cho took a place beside him on the sofa, scooting in so close that Harry might have moved away from her had there been anywhere else to go. The sofa had immediately shortened itself so that there was only room for the two of them to sit there—very closely together. _There were times she loved this room's intuition… even if it was creepy. It was dead useful in moments like these._

Before Harry could interrupt and tell her to leave, Cho charged on. "A lot's happening, changing outside these walls, Harry. I'm not sure that the school's even safe anymore. I mean, Dumbledore's only one wizard. How long can he really keep us all safe from what's waiting out there?"

Harry sighed in response and lowered his head. His posture slouched in a manner that seemed, for lack of a better term, defeated.

Cho wasn't sure what possessed her to do it. Perhaps it was some unknown pull over her that this magical room had, but she leaned forward and kissed him. A soft brush of her lips over his, timid at first, but growing in confidence when he didn't push her away.

There were things Cho knew she was good at; things of which she had some experience, and she felt fairly certain Harry had none. Well, assuming those rumours about him and Draco Malfoy in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom were fabricated. _Dear Merlin, let them be fabricated._

It was now or never.

"I can make you forget… for a little while. Things we do in here, well, maybe they'll block out the outside world for a bit. A safe haven, if you will. It's somewhere you don't have to be the chosen one. You can let down your guard and just be Harry."

Harry swallowed visibly hard and leaned back. She could tell she was getting through to him, wearing down his defences. "Will you let me, Harry? Will you let me help you forget?"

Rather than answer her, Harry kissed her. His lips were warm against hers, his resistance at an end as they broke apart, and she moved from the sofa to kneel between his knees. Trembling fingers reached for his zip, and she waited for his nod of assent to tug it down.

Harry raised his hips as she pulled down both trousers and pants to his ankles. The warmth of his hardening flesh as her fingers wrapped round felt right in her hand. Harry gasped as she made contact.

"Have you done this before?" she asked.

He shook his head reaffirming her belief that he had not. His eyes were closed, head thrown back against the sofa. "No. Have you?"

"A few times." Cho took him in her hand and began to stroke, his hard, velvet skin moving easily within the circle of her fingers. He moaned lightly, head lolling about at the new sensations her ministrations were drawing from him. "I can make it better, if you want?"

"Better?" Harry croaked incredulously. "Better? Seriously? It gets better?"

Cho smiled then leaned over him, flicking the under side of her tongue over the head of his cock.

"Oh, Merlin!"

"Better?" she asked.

"Uh-huh. Better." Harry's voice was so high pitched that the words came out in a squeak.

Cho wrapped her lips around him and began to move, her tongue trailing up and down his shaft as she suckled. She felt Harry's timid hand move into her hair, stroking her locks and brushing them behind her ear so that he could watch her.

Looking up at him as she moved her mouth, setting a rhythm, Cho winked, and she noted that the corner of Harry's mouth turned up in a conscious smile.

Her mouth moved no more than five times up and down before he lost control. He pulled her from her knees to snuggle in beside him on the sofa.

"That was— well, I don't know what that was, but I do know I liked it."

"Your eloquence astounds me, Harry," she said with a snort of derision.

"Give me a break, yeah? My mind's not exactly functioning at full capacity."

~*~

It wasn't perfect. She'd certainly had far more spectacular sexual encounters. But, it was a start to mending what they once might have been on the path to having… perhaps could have again. And for now, that was enough.

_Author's Note: This was originally written for the 2009 hp_summersmut fest on Live Journal. _


End file.
